Lear to expand seating plant in Detroit

Automotive seating supplier Lear Corp. is moving to expand its new plant in Detroit.

The Southfield, Mich.-based company has signed a lease to fill the remaining 268,000 square feet at the former Cadillac Stamping Plant on the city's east side, the company confirmed. A building permit for about $1 million of construction work was issued for the site March 7, according to Detroit building permit records.

Lear is now the sole tenant of the 684,000-square-foot space developed by Riverside, Mo.-based NorthPoint Development LLC. The supplier started just-in-time seating operations there late last year, supplying General Motors Co. Factory Zero on the Detroit-Hamtramck border.

Lear declined to provide details about the expansion.

It is the latest in a series of planned local expansions for Lear, which ranks among the world's largest automotive suppliers with $20.9 billion in revenue in 2022.

In addition to the Detroit plant, Lear announced last year it plans to open an $80 million plant and create hundreds of jobs in Independence Township, where it will make battery disconnect units for all full-size SUVs and trucks built on GM's Ultium EV platform through 2030.

Elsewhere in Michigan, Lear is plotting $32.5 million of investment, including at its Sterling Heights and Traverse City plants.

The investments are a sign that the Biden administration's efforts to onshore the manufacturing supply chain, including the Inflation Reduction Act last year, are working.

Since GM announced $7 billion in EV investments in Michigan last year, suppliers including Lear and Magna International have followed with expansion plans.

Lear CEO Ray Scott, among the 2022 Crain's Newsmakers of the Year, alluded to more announcements to come last week during the Newsmakers event at the MGM Grand Detroit. He told Crain's last October that localizing production and flexing its manufacturing plants were main priorities for Lear.